WND EXCLUSIVE

Meet a modern-day pastor who casts out demons

'It's real. They are real, and they are powerful.'

Garth Kant is WND Washington news editor. Previously, he spent five years writing, copy-editing and producing at "CNN Headline News," three years writing, copy-editing and training writers at MSNBC, and also served several local TV newsrooms as producer, executive producer and assistant news director. His most recent book is "Capitol Crime: Washington's cover-up of the Killing of Miriam Carey." He also is the author of the McGraw-Hill textbook, "How to Write Television News."

Models portrayed as possessed by demons during Beijing’s China Fashion Week in March 2016

“You are fat and ugly. You’ve got to lose more weight. You are damaged goods. It’s never going to change. You are better off dead. No man is ever going to want you.”

Remarkably, this poor, tortured woman had been hearing those voices since she was a child, yet still somehow persevered to become a success. But she was miserable and despondent.

She tried everything. Counseling, therapies, you name it.

Until, one day, at her wits’ end, she tried something completely different.

She showed up on the pastor’s doorstep wearing something decidedly unfashionable: bandages on her wrists.

She had flown in from the big city in utter desperation, just 10 days after a two-week hospitalization following an attempt to end it all.

She walked in an absolute mess, tormented, in despair and at the end of her rope.

She left smiling and in freedom. And never looked back. A dramatically changed and happy woman.

What in the world happened?

Pastor Karl Payne described it to WND as a fairly simple and straightforward case. A typical case. No screaming. No swearing. No projectile vomiting or spinning heads. They just had a conversation.

She was afflicted with demons. He got rid of them.

As he has routinely for patients for three-and-a-half decades. Free of charge.

No big deal. Except to her. And countless others he’s helped.

It’s what he does.

Actually, he would say, “God – through His delegated authority, grace and power – got rid of them.”

Payne maintains he has quietly and routinely worked with demonized patients for all these years without charge because he considers this ministry part of a pastor’s responsibility, when it is necessary.

Payne believes his track record and hundreds of testimonials are proof of the validity of the transferable method of deliverance he outlines in his book and articles on the subject.

But even though what he does appears to be simple, that doesn’t mean it is. He warns, dealing with demons is particularly dangerous for the unbeliever.

“They are real, and they are powerful. But you need to recognize you are confronting them through the delegated authority of the creator, of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are responding as part of his creation. Creator trumps creation.”

He calls it spiritual warfare.

The pastor welcomed the courage of the psychiatrist as “someone willing to stand up, knowing that his colleagues are going to besmirch him. That’s a brave person. And I respect that. So, whether I agreed with everything in that article or not, I won’t argue with someone who is willing to say this is real.”

Payne said even fellow pastors can be reluctant to accept the reality of spiritual warfare, and, “I know the risk I run with colleagues by saying that, but this stuff is real.”

“War in Heaven” by Peter Paul Rubens

A look at his biography shows the pastor is as mainstream as mainstream pastors get.

Payne served as chaplain and spiritual counselor for the NFL’s Seahawks from 1994 through 2015, stepping down last year after 21 full seasons.

“I continue to stay in touch with players and coaches, and have been told I am welcome back to visit or watch practices with a simple phone call,” he told WND.

Payne is currently on staff at Antioch Bible Church of Redmond, Washington, where he serves as the pastor of leadership development and discipleship training.

He has written three books on discipleship, co-authored two books on the just use of force and Christian cross training, and collaborated on a number of works on apologetics, biblical ethics and Christian leadership development.

He says the book has remained first or second on the first page of Amazon for books in that category for nearly four years.

“Spiritual Warfare” is a detailed explanation of what he does and how he does it.

What he does is quite straightforward and consists of a few simple steps.

While the psychiatrist Gallagher believes cases of actual demonic possession are few in number, Payne does not believe cases of spiritual oppression and demonization are quite so rare.

Payne does not make as clear a distinction as Gallagher between demonic oppression and possession, although the pastor does find the categories useful in describing the intensity of an affliction.

He sees demonic oppression, demonization and possession as existing along a continuum of increasing intensity.

“There’s just different degrees of control,” Payne explained. “Slight, for oppression. Disconcerting and far more debilitating and discouraging in cases of genuine demonization. And almost total subjection of the will, in cases more commonly described as possession.”

What the pastor does is similar to what the psychiatrist does in that they first both look to rule out physiological or psychological causes of a person’s distress.

But, where Gallagher then leaves it for the spiritual professionals, Payne provides treatment.

He calls it “a simple, pragmatic, biblically consistent response that any genuine Christian can utilize in the case of demonization.”

What he actually does is rather simple. He says, to exorcise a demon he has a simple conversation.

Payne’s method has three requirements, three steps, two meetings and a few ground rules.

Three requirements:

Be a Christian.

Be 100 percent honest.

Have the attitude of a fighter, not a victim.

Three steps:

Confession

Canceling

Commanding

Two meetings:

Evaluation

Treatment

First meeting

Why does Payne’s method seem to work so well?

Payne believes it is important to recognize demons are real. But it’s more important to recognize God is real. And to realize God is more powerful than demons. That’s why it works.

It is not the power of the pastor that drives out the demons. It is God.

That’s the key.

Payne also believes it is essential to realize Jesus Christ is God.

Payne did not say, but clearly believes, the proof of that claim may be found in the incredible effectiveness of this demon-banishing method.

He did say proof that Christ is God is found in “Scripture, with formerly demonized Christians coming to view their minds and bodies as temples rather than prisons, and their walk with God something to enjoy rather than endure.”

“Prince of Peace” by Akiane Kramarik

In the first meeting, Payne said, “I am essentially trying to look them over to figure out if I am even buying this. I’ve got to believe it’s the real thing or I’m just wasting their time.”

He said it also gives patients a chance to get to know him and decide if it’s for them, because, “They’re usually scared when they come in, which I understand.”

The pastor said people will typically say something like they are challenged by something they have been told to ignore because it’s silly, or they’ve been told it’s so powerful it’s going to destroy them. And that they don’t know what to do, but it has become so bad they have become desperate.

“During that first meeting, I try to make several things very clear. I will try to make sure that they understand that, to my knowledge, there are three non-negotiable requirements (listed above) that have to be true or it’s going to go nowhere.”

The reasons for insisting upon complete honesty and a disdain for an attitude of victimization may be fairly self-evident. But Payne takes care to explain to people why it is also essential to be a Christian for the treatment to work.

“Demons don’t fear people, but they fear Christ who lives in a person. That’s why in Acts 19, if they didn’t recognize the people who were doing the exorcisms and deliverances as believers, they attacked them. If Christ was in them, the demons would have been frightened of them. Not because of the individual or their vocation or their ethnicity or whatever. When demons see Christ in someone, that backs them up.”

Once Payne is satisfied the problem is spiritual and that the person seeking help is a committed Christian and committed to solving the affliction, he gives a homework assignment.

First, those seeking his help are to read three Bible selections.

Mark 7:21-23

(21) For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, (22) adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. (23) All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Galatians 5:19-21

(19) The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; (20) idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions (21) and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Colossians 3:5-8

(5) Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. (6) Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. (7) You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. (8) But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

(All translations from New International Version.)

Patients are then instructed to make a list of their own problems that they see in those verses.

“I will say I want you on a piece of paper to work through these three Bible verses and write down anything there that represents a habitual problem in your life. If it’s occasional and not habitual, it’s not demons. They are not kind enough to bother you just once a year,” he explained.

“If you feel like they are beating you up 24/7, you just can’t turn it off, it won’t stop, like you’re losing your mind,” then it’s the kind of problem for consideration.

Payne explained what he sees as the differences among oppression, demonization and what is commonly called possession.

“We are really just talking about degrees of control. We are not talking about ownership. Squatters don’t own anything. Oppression is basically a nuisance. Most of us deal with it. It’s just these irrational little thoughts.”

Or maybe the thoughts are rational but nonetheless misguided, “Something like, ‘Trade your wife in for this one. Look at this, look at that.'”

Payne described it as a parade of temptations preying upon weaknesses and looking to exploit desires.

“St. Paul the Apostle” by El Greco

“It’s mental and it’s contrary to Christ. In oppression, there are what Paul calls little arrows. Paul calls them arrows in Ephesians 6:16. John calls it accusation or accusatory thoughts in Revelation 12:10-11. Same thing.”

If oppression is mostly a nuisance, demonization is more serious.

“That would be the middle group. And those are the ones I deal with most of the time. That’s where you have the Christian who has through either one of two ways become demonized.”

One way is through habitual sin, the other is through ancestral (inherited) sin. He deals with both.

“To someone who says I don’t think Christians can be controlled in any way by the devil, I say to them you better take Ephesians 4 and tear it out of your Bible,” because it warns believers not to let the devil gain a foothold.

Key to Payne’s system is his conviction that sin gives demons permission to influence even a believer.

That’s because the believer can give up “literally a place, space, or territory of control to the devil.”

The pastor said the third type of those afflicted, the possessed, are described in Luke 8.

“The ones who run buck naked howling at the moon, hurts people where there’s just no self-control at all, totally subjugated,” he explained. “I have seen people in all three of those stages. None of them are owned by demons. They are just experiencing different degrees of demonic control.”

At the end of the first meeting, “I will send them out and say, ‘If you do not complete that assignment and make that list, don’t come back and see me. The only call I want to get from you is when it’s done and when you want to make an appointment to come in.'”

They are to call him, not the other way around because Payne wants to make sure they are willing and serious.

Second meeting

Payne’s treatment for demonization is just a conversation. But, to make sure it does not get out of hand and that all goes smoothly and calmly, first, he lays down some non-negotiable ground rules.

Not for the patient. For the demons.

No cursing. No controlling the patient’s mind, tongue or body. No direct speaking to the pastor. (The ground rules he lays down before confrontation of demons are fully outlined in Chapter 8 of his book.)

Payne doesn’t need to be convinced the demons are real. He’s seen enough evidence in his time. He’s also seen patients run amok when they let the demons control them. He’s tired of that. And it’s counter-productive.

“By laying down ground rules, you are making it easier for the person by reminding the demons, ”You are not in control of this. You are losers. You played this game a long time. You have been cruel, and now it’s coming back at you. You are going to do what you’re told to do. It’s not a forum for you to plead your case. You’re leaving. You played the game with this person; you’re now going to pay the dues.'”

“Demons Armed with Sticks” by Matthias Grünewald

Payne finds keeping things civilized is the best strategy.

“I will tell demons they are not permitted to speak through you, they are permitted to speak to you. There’s a difference. When I would let demons speak through the person, I would get called an effing this, an effing that. Jesus is an effing this or that.”

With a wry understatement, he continued, “They don’t like Jesus at all, and they don’t like you, either. I got tired of that. That’s why no profanity is one of the ground rules. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re allowed to speak to (patient’s name). Speak to her in the same voice with the same thoughts you’ve been using to harass her for years. You’ll speak to her in response my questions.”

Payne stressed the importance of explaining to patients that demons may tell them to do lots of things, but it is crucial to realize that the demons cannot make them do anything that they are not willing to do.

“The reason I do that is because I found out early working with people that we would be right in the middle of challenging a demon and the person would jump up and run. And so I would chase them and bring them back,” he recollected with a laugh. “And they’d say something just told me to run.”

Payne found a solution.

“My mentor finally said, ‘Just leave the door open. Tell them if you want to be here, let’s deal with this. If you don’t, then just get up and go.'”

Payne further illustrated why the ground rules are in the patient’s best interest by adding, “What if a woman is 33 years old and loves Jesus and she’s throwing the F-bomb around and breaks into tears and says, ‘I never talk that way’? I’ll say, ‘I know you don’t. I don’t believe that’s you.'”

“So, if I tell them in the ground rules, there will be no more profanity, and then there’s no more sweet little old ladies throwing F-bombs at Jesus.”

He described another peril posed by theatrics: They can even put the pastor on an ego trip.

“When people allow deliverance to be turned into a circus, either they are doing it out of ignorance because they don’t know they can stop it, or they are doing it on purpose so people will go, ‘Man you’re the powerful one.'”

Payne emphasized, “You’re not here to build your own name and your own reputation. You’re here to help the person you’re talking with. That’s why when people say, ‘Gosh, I was kinda disappointed. I want to see them barfing and screaming,’ I will say, ‘Do you think that’s best for them?’ No. Are you here for a circus or to see them helped?”

But misbehavior is not the only trick up the devil’s sleeve.

The pastor explained how demons will employ an arsenal of negative suggestions. They will tell a patient she’s not strong enough to resist or withstand their attacks; it’s not going to work; she will fail; the pastor doesn’t know what he’s doing; she doesn’t know she’s doing; they’re too strong.

“In other words, they can lie all day long. And it’s always an attempt to short-circuit this, circumvent this from happening. They’ll say, ‘It can get worse. If you think it’s bad now, if you make us mad it will just get worse.’ They will whisper that kind of stuff to people. They can tell you anything.”

“The Last Judgment” by Michelangelo

But the bottom line, he tells patients, is the one who holds the keys to life and death is the Lord Jesus Christ, not some part of his creation.

“As long as he is giving you breath, you have a purpose for life. And when he quits giving you breath, you are done. And there’s not a thing you can do about that, so don’t fear the creation. Fear the creator.”

“And if part of the creation tries to tell you to get up and run, interfere, pick up a rock and throw it at Karl, fall out of your chair, whatever, you can say, ‘No I’m not going to play that game.'”

Treatment

The heart of the treatment in the second meeting consists of what Payne called the three Cs: confession, canceling, commanding.

He says the three Cs are like a three-legged stool: Once all a demon’s support is removed, it’s over.

“First we confess the sin that opened the door,” Payne explained.

Then the sin is canceled by praying, “Oh, father in heaven would you please cancel any permission I have given demons to hold any kind of ground or territory in my life?

Then the patient commands the demons to leave, by what Payne says is the authority granted to all true believers by the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s that simple.

But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy for someone to accept the reality of something so routinely and thoroughly dismissed by the modern world.

Especially, as Payne revealed is often the case, if the person is not even aware he or she is suffering from demonization.

As long as the patient is willing, Payne will proceed.

First, he said, “I will usually ask four or five questions. I don’t do it because I need the information. I do it because I want the person who has been demonized to understand this stuff really is real.”

His first question is, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ what’s your name?” And, he said, “They will tell you.”

He then will ask, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who commissioned you to do the work you are doing?”

Payne said a demon will typically say, “Satan or the dark Lord, or the evil one, or Lucifer, my master, or something like that.”

That is often something the patient wasn’t expecting.

“The reason I am doing that is not because I need that information. I could command them to go once we’ve taken care of confessing sin and canceling the subsequent ground. But I want people to recognize it wasn’t their imagination whispering those demeaning things to them.”

Payne will then proceed by asking, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, what are the lies the demon has been telling (the patient) on a habitual basis?”

And then something like, “You make her think it’s her own thinking, then you condemn her for the lies you whispered to her, right?”

Perhaps followed by, “Do you plant a lie in her mind and beat her up when she starts ruminating on the lie?”

He will ask, “What are the lies?”

“Christ of Saint John of the Cross” by Salvador Dalí

“There are things,” he said, “like she wastes her time reading the Bible, her husband is having sex with somebody else, God is not strong enough to protect her, it’s never going to change, she’s losing her mind, were going to destroy her, she’s worthless.”

Typically, Payne said, the patient will then confirm that is the stuff they have been hearing in their head all the time. “And they believed it.”

Patients will tell him they had thought they were losing their minds. Some of them have actually heard a voice speaking to them. Others experienced thoughts that were similar to someone speaking to them.

Payne said there isn’t much difference. “I don’t care whether someone says ‘They’re speaking to me, I hear their voices, I get impressions, or I get words.’ It all connects mentally and you are always the loser for it.”

He’s had people describe them either way.

“I’ve had some people say, ‘Karl, I just hear these voices talking to me.’ I’ve had other people say, ‘I just get these thoughts that just pop into my head, and they’re always so negative: You’re so terrible, you’re no good.’ I’ve had people say it’s just impressions that come out of nowhere.”

There is a common thread to what the voices, or thoughts, say.

“It’s usually about what you’ve done wrong, and why you always measure up short regarding God’s love and forgiveness and your track record serving Him,” he explained. “All they want is a person to listen to them and isolate themselves. You can get yourself believing you’re so bad no one wants anything to do with you. You can also isolate yourself by thinking you’re so much better than everyone and become so obnoxious nobody wants to deal with you.”

“All they want is the isolation,” he continued. “Because when you’re isolated, you’re no longer looking to Christ. You’re no longer looking to Christian fellowship. You no longer see yourself as worthy of being a Christian friend, or you don’t see anyone else as being worthy of your time.”

Payne recognizes that if a person is hearing voices, he or she may be schizophrenic. But what if the person is perfectly rational in every other way and they actually are hearing voices?

The pastor feels doctors can be too quick to prescribe medications, in some cases.

“As soon as someone says he hears voices they’ll say, ‘Oh they’re schizophrenic.’ So they drug them because their assumption is that there is no God, there is no devil, there are no angels, there are no demons. So, they think the person is either making this up for attention or this person is psychotic so they drug them.”

Payne said the assumption of the naturalist is that none of this is real, so the patients are not really hearing anything. But, he maintained, “I am here to tell you there are people that are getting fed lies almost all day long. It usually ends up with people wanting to kill themselves.”

The pastor said the people who come to him usually have already tried everything else.

“I’m not opposed to good counselors. I’m not opposed to drugs, if appropriate. If they work, it’s not demons,” he explained.

“But I get too many people on the other side of the fence who have been to counselors for 28 sessions at $200 a pop, and they just say, ‘I guess there is no hope for me.'”

These are people at their wits’ end.

“They’ll say, ‘I went to the pastor, he prayed for me and nothing happened. I went to the elders, they prayed for me, nothing happened. I went to an M.D. and he tried to work with me, nothing happened. I went to a state-mandated counselor, nothing happened. I went to a Christian counselor, but I still hear in my mind you’re beyond hope, there is no help, so just put a bullet in your head.'”

“St. Michael and Satan” by Raphael

WND suggested many, maybe most, of these people were not aware they were under oppression or demonization, so they must be very surprised when in the course of treatment they find out there’s apparently an entity within them that is speaking through them.

“Absolutely,” was the succinct response.

After that often-shocking revelation, the patient then must be willing to be cured. Or, as Payne put it, “The patient then must be willing to stand on truth rather than actively entertain lies.”

“I want them to understand that if we are going to deal with this, you need to understand that they will play the game to try to stay, and they’ll tell you whatever you will listen to. And what they’ve got to hear from you is, ‘I am a Christian, I will be honest, and I am done playing the victim. I won’t play that game.'”

Three Cs

Payne said once he is convinced it is a true case of demonization, and once the patient realizes what is going on, he will take that person’s list of problem areas and go through the three Cs for each one, beginning with confession.

“First, there has to be a confession of the sin. The sin that opened the door. The sin that turned the light out. In word, thought or deed. It’s something that I did. I displeased God. I know I did it, but it went on habitually to the point that it finally opened up a space or territory taken over by a demon.”

Payne said a habitual sin is essentially an invitation for a demon to set up house, because, “A demon will see, if you don’t care about this, don’t complain if we set up a playground in your backyard, because apparently you’re open to that.”

Payne said he knows of just two ways demons take advantage: One is through habitual sin of one’s own doing, the other is through ancestral sin.

“Whether people like it or not, yes, demons can work through ancestral sin. For some of us who grew up in the ’60s, if I had thought that some of the things I did would affect my kids in a negative way, I might have been less stupid about some of the stuff I did,” he confessed.

The pastor observed, since the modern world mocks Christianity, it also mocks the idea of ancestral sin.

Mimicking such thinking, he mused, “Who thinks that way anyway? People who think the devil wears a red suit and has a pitchfork? But ancestral sin is real. I am not aware of any other ways for demons to ultimately gain that that space or territory, except through my own habitual sin or through ancestral sin.”

How does Payne discover when ancestral sin is at play? And how does he find out what the sin was? The same way he gets all the other information he needs from the demons, by interrogating them.

“When I first started working with deliverance in the early 80s, I would see ancestral sin come up like maybe one out of every 15 people I’d work with. Now, it’s just the other way around. I see it all the time. And I believe it’s because I am dealing with the children and the grandchildren of my generation that said, ‘God is dead, drugs are great, multiple sex partners are great, to hell with everything, dogs run free why can’t we?'”

Payne believes he is dealing with people who are reaping the results of a generation that has turned its back on God.

“I really believe that is true. If someone else says how naïve, I say believe whatever you want. I think I’ve gotten more people with problems with ancestral sin in the last 10 years than in the first 20 years combined, probably.”

He deals with ancestral sin in the same way as habitual sin.

“I can say, ‘In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, if there are any demonic spirits who have attacked this person through ancestral sin come forward now.’ So I learned you can deal with ancestral sin just like I can immorality, or greed, drug addictions, any of that. You don’t even have to identify the specific ancestral sin. You just ask God to forgive all ancestral sin and to cancel any ground related to ancestral sin being carried by the demonized person.”

“Adam and Eve” by Masaccio

The most common sins?

Payne said fear and bitterness come up over and over.

“People think it’s all going to be kind of an involved Satanic ritual abuse, yada, yada. Yeah, I run into some of that stuff. Morality, drugs, a lot of stuff I’ve dealt with. But, the two that come up most often are fear and unforgiveness, bitterness. ‘I hate that person and I’m a Christian, but I’ll never forgive him.'”

“And the other is, ‘I know God says he’ll protect me, but I just know he won’t, and the other side is going to attack me, so I lived in perpetual fear.’ Both of those are an insult to God.”

WND asked: Is fear a sin, in that sense?

“Absolutely,” was the immediate response. “Jesus Christ says, ‘I will never leave you, I will never forsake you,’ and yet some people live as though He doesn’t care about them.”

“That’s often because the other side is saying all the time, ‘If God loves you, why would he let this happen? And that? See, He doesn’t love you. Why do you fear God? You should fear us.’ And once a person starts doing that, buying that, what they are saying, whether they know it or not, is a slap to God. You are calling him a liar.”

Repentance is part of the confession.

In the case of fear, Payne will offer a prayer such as, “Oh, father in heaven, I know that fear should not be controlling my life. I know that you should be. I don’t want to insult you. I am sorry I allowed that to happen. Would you please forgive me for allowing fear to control my life?”

“What you just did there was take one leg off the three legged stool,” summed up the pastor.

The second C is canceling.

“Take the sin of fear,” illustrated Payne. “I just confessed this and You promised in 1 John I:9 that when I confess You will cleanse. So I’ve confessed it, so thank You for cleansing that out of my life. Would You now close any door opened to demons to bother me through my sin of fear?”

In other words, the pastor explained, one is asking God not to allow any permission for the other side to bother the patient through this particular sin, because, “I have given that back to you.” The person is asking Christ to cancel their permission to hold any ground against them through the sin just confessed.

An appropriate prayer would be: “Oh, father in heaven would you please cancel any permission I have given demons to hold any kind of ground or territory in my life?”

“We just tore the second leg of that three-legged stool,” said Payne.

The third C is commanding.

It can only be done once the patient has dealt with the sin. But then the commands will be effective, the pastor maintains.

“Command the demons. Tell them to get lost, and they’ll go because they no longer have any right to be there.”

As far as the actual technique goes, Payne said, “I have the person command with me. I tell them, ‘Remember, this is your fight, not mine. I stand with you as a friend, but you’re the one who’s letting them know I want you gone.'”

Payne gave a hypothetical of a demon that had identified itself by the name Dragon.

“So they (the patient) will say, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we command Dragon, with all of your works and effects, all of your associates and any of their works and their effects working with you, leave me, go to the pit, and don’t ever come back. We command that in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Payne noted that Matthew 12 says when you sweep out a room, you need someone stronger than the demons to fill that room.

He will tell patients, “Since God swept it out, I want you to ask God, the Holy Spirit to fill and control everything that was vacated by that demonic spirit and his buddies? Holy Spirit of God, please come in and enter the area that was just vacated. I turn that all over to you. I want you to control that area in my life, thank you. I pray this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then, said the pastor, “I’ll say what’s in the next room?”

He then repeats the three Cs and the entire process for each individual sin until the patient is delivered from demonic bondage.

When all the sins the patient has identified have been addressed, Payne will ask one last question:

“Do you yet hold any ground against (the patient) that keeps you from leaving? When the ground is gone they will say, ‘No, my permission to be here is gone.’ There’s nothing then that could allow them to stay.”

Then he commands them to leave in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Commands are not asking permission for demons to cooperate. Commands are telling demons what they are going to do,” Payne clarified. “When you’ve been told you’ve been delegated authority to step on demons you don’t treat them as equals. They are losers.”

Mopping up

“Once we get to where we thought we’ve covered everything, we needed to check, I’ll say we mop up now. This is the last room.”

Just in case there is something they’ve missed, Payne will have patients say one last confession-canceling prayer. But, most importantly, he wants to make sure they’ve expelled what he called the bandleader.

He will pray, “Lord Jesus we are asking that you would forgive any sin and cancel any ground associated with that spirit holding highest authority in my life other than the Holy Spirit.”

Because, he explained, “That one’s the bandleader. That’s one that is typically the administrator, who kind of orchestrates the work. Now, if you have already got the boss as you were walking through different areas, there will be total quiet. They’ll be no more voices, it just stops.”

Whispering demon in “The Last Judgment” by Luca Signorelli

“On the other hand, if we didn’t get the bandleader, since they’re the one who represents the highest authority other than the Holy Spirit, they’ll come forward. I’ll say, ‘Are you the boss of this whole game?’ They’ll say, ‘Yes, I am.'”

Payne will then ask, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when did you take advantage of this person?” and, “They might say, it was ancestral, I’ve been with them since their birth. If it was at some point in time, they’ll say I’ve been with them since a certain date.

“And I’ll say tell them exactly when you took advantage of the patient. They’ll respond something like, ‘I took advantage of them on January 2, 1980, at the picnic,’ or something. They know exactly when they took advantage of this person. I will often have people say, ‘I never put that together, but that’s when my life turned upside-down. That’s when I started hearing I’m worthless.’

“So, I’ll say, ‘In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ your ground is gone. Your permission is gone. You understand when you leave this person is to be free?’ And they’ll say, ‘Yep.'”

At this point, the demonized person will exercise the third C, commanding that demon to leave with all of its works, effects, associates and their effects.

The patient will then ask the Holy Spirit of God to fill every area “the boss and his buddies” have vacated, and say, “I want my whole life turned over to you. I want to walk with you. Thank you in the name of Jesus Christ.”

“Then that person is done.”

Why does it work?

Payne stressed that what he does works not because of his power, but because of God’s. What the pastor brings to the table is knowledge about the nature of that power and how to use it.

WND asked: Why are demons eventually compelled to tell you the truth?

“Because they recognize, with Christ living in me, I have delegated authority that is higher than theirs,” he explained.

“Demons are soldiers. And they defer to the highest authority directing commands at them. Usually, it is their demonic upline. That’s why I said when non-Christians try and get involved in deliverance or exorcism, they (demons) don’t recognize that person’s authority. When they recognize someone who has Christ within them, then they realize they are no longer dealing with the person but the master, of that person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And they do not have the authority to oppose Christ.”

Payne emphasized he is just the messenger.

“When people say it’s all about my personality gifting, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. I’ve seen both introverts and extroverts deal very effectively with demons. I’ve seen people who have silver tongues that can deal with demons. I’ve seen people do it who are socially awkward, but they understand their authority in Christ.”

It’s not about him; it’s all about God.

Or, as he put it, “It’s not about the ambassador, it’s all about the God the ambassador serves, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”

“The whole point of my book is, because Christ lives in you and you’ve been delegated authority, you don’t have to go to one particular exorcist or one particular person of deliverance because the same Jesus that lives in them, assuming they’re Christians, lives in you. And demons fear Christ who lives in the believer.”

WND asked what happens when he’s not successful with someone who was willing to be helped?

“Great question. I have found two things. When someone is wanting help but things don’t go right, usually there were one of two things going on. There was an ancestral sin that was never approached, because most people don’t approach it, and demons think you are too stupid to figure it out. Or, a person was purposely holding on to something’s, saying, “I won’t let go of it.'”

Does that happen often?

“Very seldom. I now know to weed out the problems before I start. I’ve had about five people in 35 years who I don’t think they were better off when we finished. I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of Christians walk away free.”

And his success has put him in great demand.

“I have more people calling me than I have an ability to call back on a daily basis. I have more people sending me emails than I have an ability to respond.”

It is finished

How does he know when a treatment is done? What happens?

It’s simple, he explained. He doesn’t hear about any more problems from the patient.

He returned to the example of the model to illustrate.

The pastor asked what she heard the voice tell her and, “She looked right at me and said, ‘It’s just like I told you, I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m damaged goods. And my prayers bounce off the ceiling.”

He pointed out that was not what she had said at first. She said she had heard, “You are fat and you are ugly.”

“Virgin and Child” by Botticelli

Payne asked her, “Why did you flip-flop the pronouns?” She didn’t even realize she had done it.

He explained to her, when demons are speaking they are not the person. “They are a real entity. But, as Paul said, they shoot these little darts. And as John said they throw these accusations at you. They are not you so they don’t say I.”

The pastor explained how, if a person has heard it long enough, she will just flip the pronouns herself.

“I said what did you actually hear, and she burst into tears. She said it’s, ‘You. You this, you that. It started when I was five or six years old.'”

Payne then asked her when she was sexually abused.

He described how her eyes got big and she looked over at her friend, an athlete’s wife who had brought her in, and said, “Did you tell him I was sexually abused?” And her friend said no. The model said, “How did you know that?”

“You keep saying you’re damaged goods,” he replied. “And you keep saying you are ugly. And yet, no one would believe that. You say you need to lose more weight. I said, ‘How do you make your living?’ She said as a model. And I said, ‘How many fat ugly models do you know? And she said, ‘Well, I guess I’m just the exception.’

“I said no, you think all of that is true, because you’ve heard it for so long. But it’s not true. And when you say it to other people, they tell you it’s not true. If you tell it to girls, they won’t believe you. If you tell it to guys, they will find a way to use it, they’ll find a way to play you. It’s just not true. You don’t find big fat ugly models making a living doing what you’re doing, do you?”

And she just started weeping. And she said she’d heard it over and over and over. It won’t stop.

She said she was just so tired. She just thought, maybe it’s true. “Maybe I’m not strong enough to make it. Maybe God doesn’t love me enough to help me, because I can’t get this to stop.”

Payne said none of this was true. It was being whispered at her. “You’re this, you’re that. That’s how the game is played.”

The pastor assured her it was not God telling her that she was fat and ugly and stupid. “He loves me enough to die for me, he wouldn’t be saying that.”

And then they got to work.

“I have not heard back from her since that day she flew here, which usually means things are going well. I am in regular contact with the person who originally asked me on her behalf if I would meet with her. I feel quite certain if things were not going well that I would have heard about it from one or both ladies.”

And he does his best to make sure the treatment sticks.

“I give people follow-up assignments which I also outline in the book. People are free to call me or email if questions arise. In the case of successful deliverance, no news is usually good news. So as far as I know, she is enjoying her freedom in Christ, and probably enjoying it more than people who have never experienced what it means to be demonized.”

Payne described the change in a healed person as usually dramatic.

“The mental torment a demonized person had learned to just accept as their normal goes quiet. Their new norm now involves a serene sense of peace in the midst of daily conflicts, and confidence rather than confusion.

When people who have been demonized begin winning battles they have lost for so many years, their countenance often changes to a smile, hope and determination.”

And in the case of the model, as with the overwhelming majority of those Payne has helped over the decades, no news is the best news of all.